


Checkmarks

by eternaleponine



Series: Ghosts That We Knew [14]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Deleted Scene, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 17:33:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A deleted scene that occurs during/after Chapter 16 of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/951779/chapters/1861493">Time for a Sign</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Checkmarks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jacedesbff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacedesbff/gifts).



Pepper knew Tony was lying, and she knew that she could – maybe should – call him on it. But he was lying to cover for his friend, and that was admirable, right? It wasn't as if getting the workup of the script for sound cues was absolutely critical right this second. Really, it wasn't going to be critical until near the end of production, but if it was done, it would have been one more thing she could check off her list, one more thing she didn't have to worry about, and she'd thought she could count on Bruce.

Or maybe he wasn't lying. She was pretty sure that Tony Stark could lie as easily as he breathed or solved quadratic equations. But that didn't mean he _always_ lied. That didn't mean that something couldn't have come up with Bruce unexpectedly, and he'd trusted Tony to tell her that he wasn't going to be able to make it, and Tony had just gotten caught up in his own stuff and forgotten. 

It wasn't like she'd never forgotten anything.

Well... she hadn't. Not recently. She couldn't afford to. That's why she had lists. They kept her on track, kept things running smoothly, and kept her from going out of her mind. Lists were reliable. Lists told the truth. Not like people.

The trouble with Tony Stark, she decided as she headed down the hall to check on Natasha and her costume crew, was that he was so absolutely, intensely irritating one minute, and so charismatic and endearing the next. It was enough to give a person whiplash.

And around her, he made a point to turn on the charm. Which was absolutely, intensely irritating in its own right.

But that's not that he'd done today. He hadn't tried to charm her. He hadn't gone all snake oil salesman on her, or all rich boy always gets his way. He'd just been... open. Honest.

~~While lying.~~

~~While _probably_ lying.~~

~~While probably lying, but to protect a friend.~~

~~While possibly bending the truth to protect a friend.~~

While possibly bending the truth to protect a friend and reassure her that everything was going to be okay.

So his heart was in the right place. 

And that's what she hated about him, was that as annoying as he was, as much as he drove her up a wall 99% of the time, the things he did came from a good place 99% of the time, and even with an A (not an A+, but she had that extra credit project to do over break, in her free time...) in math, she wasn't sure what that added up to because the arithmetic (or algebra, or maybe it was calculus) of emotion was something that she was pretty sure even Tony Stark hadn't mastered yet.

No, not pretty sure. _Absolutely_ sure.

And he was self-centered, and egotistical, wrapped up in himself with little to no thought of those around him unless they fit into his scheme of the moment. He was a loner, who made robots instead of friends, who threw parties and surrounded himself with sycophants to feed his sense of self-worth...

... and who arranged to stream the graduation service so that Steve's mother could see him graduate from her hospice bed...

... and who held Thanksgiving dinner not as a major event with him at the center of it all, but as a family meal for those who didn't have families, or who didn't quite fit with their families, or who just needed to escape their families...

She rubbed her temples. It was enough to give a girl a migraine. 

So she pushed Tony Stark out of her head and moved on to the next box on the list.

**Author's Note:**

> For [jacedesbff](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jacedesbff/pseuds/jacedesbff), who wanted to see Pepper's feelings for Tony.


End file.
